Tag: God

Cancel Culture vs the Gospel

by JacobChristian Living

The first time I remember seeing something like “cancel culture” was when I was in middle school.

I grew up in Missouri, and back in 2012, a man named Todd Akin ran for senate. Akin was a socially-conservative Republican seen as a viable challenger to incumbent Missouri senator Claire McCaskill, a centrist Democrat. I remember Akin doing quite well in the polls until he made a comment during an interview about “legitimate rape.”

Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.

– Todd Akin, quotation via Wikipedia

In the days and weeks that followed, all anyone could talk about was Akin’s comment about “legitimate rape.” News channels, radio broadcasts, and websites ran virtually wall-to-wall analyses of the interview, the vast majority of them negative. Political attack ads proliferated.

One of my friends (probably 13 or 14 years old at the time) even said something like, “I used to like Todd Akin, but now I support Claire McCaskill.”

The enormous backlash that followed this interview completely torpedoed Akin’s campaign, and he ended up receiving less than 40% of the vote in a state that largely embraced (and still embraces) traditional values. And when Akin died in 2021, many news outlets ran a headline stating, “Ex-U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, sunk by ‘legitimate rape’ remark, dies.”

Not only did Akin’s comments doom his political aspirations over 10 years ago, they left a permanent stain on his reputation that has outlived the man himself. No amount of apologies (and he made lots of them) could atone for the grave sin he committed when he uttered a single phrase: legitimate rape.

He was cast out. Judged with finality. Made irrelevant.

He was cancelled.

The Spirit of Cancel Culture

As I mentioned earlier, I grew up in Missouri. I went to a small school and graduated with a class of around 70 students.

In that small school, reputation was everything.

I remember that everyone had things they were “known for.” One of my classmates, for example, liked to wear his jeans pulled up to his belly-button. People denounced him as “gay” and didn’t like to associate with him (even though he wasn’t really gay at all). He was an outcast. They dared not try to actually get to know him.

In middle school, another one of my classmates did something that was mistaken by other students as something entirely different, and the rumors started spreading like wildfire. This classmate became an instant pariah. He was bullied, excluded, and eventually ended up moving schools a year or two later. All for one action he supposedly committed — but didn’t really do.

There are other examples I won’t go into. But the point I’m trying to make is this: in an environment like that, your entire reputation – that is, how people see you, interact with you, and relate to you – could literally hinge on one single event.

Do something that others don’t like, and you’ll be shut out.

Yes, they will slam the door on you. People will stop inviting you to things. They’ll quit talking to you and they’ll quit sitting by you at lunch. You’ll be frozen out of the social ecosystem, and nothing you say or do will get you back in.

That was sort-of the environment in the school I went to growing up.

This is also the “spirit” behind cancel culture.

In today’s world (I’m talking about in the United States in particular), there’s a very strong sense of being “in or out.”

Say the right things, do the right things, act the right way, and you’re “in.” People will support you and say good things about you and listen to you. But the moment you do something that runs counter to the grain of the culture, people will turn on you.

That is what is meant by ‘cancel culture.’

They’ll blast you on social media, news sites will say horrible things about you, and your reputation will plummet. When someone (typically a high-profile person, such as an athlete, artist, or politician) crosses the line, there’s an initial shockwave of fire and rage.

But then comes the ice.

People stop paying attention to you. They automatically disregard what you say or do. They ignore your attempts to get back into the good graces of society. You’re forever branded by the one thing you said or did that was “wrong” — even though you may have since said and done a hundred thousand things that were “right.” Whenever your face appears on the screen or your name flashes across their social media feed, they automatically write you off as discredited and out of favor.

They cancel you.

Just like the dog-eat-dog social world of middle school, today’s broad American culture seems to be all about who said what and who did what. And if you say or do something wrong – whether it’s truly wrong or just wrong in the sight of the people as a whole – you’ll be treated like an outcast at a small school: iced out, excluded, and remembered permanently for that one slip-up.

This is the spirit of cancel culture.

Commit a single sin – a compromising photo from 30 years ago, an poorly-worded remark, a Freudian slip – and it’s over. You’re condemned. And there’s no way to be forgiven.

You’re just done.

Maybe I am overstating or oversimplifying things, and it’s worth noting that everyone seems to have a different view of what exactly constitutes “cancel culture.” But from my point of view, cancel culture is basically middle school social behavior applied to broader culture. It’s petty, fickle, childish, and leaves no room for disagreement, healthy debate, or forgiveness.

You’re either in or out.

Fortunately, we as Christians have a powerful antidote to this toxic aspect of society.

The Gospel Opposes Cancel Culture

Consider the central message of the Gospel. I think Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15 sums this up rather nicely:

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

1 Timothy 1:15, ESV [emphasis mine]

Indeed, the core message of the Gospel – or “good news” – is that Christ came to save sinners. Without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, there is no hope for anyone. For we are all sinners, and we have all fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23).

That is the kicker. Mankind, you see, has been on a streak of rebellion against God ever since Adam and Eve fell into sin in the Garden of Eden. Every time you and I sin – when we tell a lie, act selfishly, give into lust, and so much more – we are rebelling against God. 

Don’t you think that rebellion against the Creator of all things (you and me included) deserves punishment? Doesn’t that, of all things, make one deserving of being ‘cancelled?’

When I look at cancel culture, I see a vindictive system of punishment. Sure, sometimes people say and do things that really do deserve our righteous anger. I am not excusing their behavior. If someone makes racist statements, that’s wrong. There’s no getting around it. If someone is having an affair or abusing women (or men) in any way, that’s flat out wrong. 

Again, no way around it. 

But what does cancel culture tell us to do when someone says or does something wrong – either actually wrong or just perceived as wrong?

Flame the person, ice them out, and force them out of relevancy. 

And no matter what they say or do, don’t let them back in. 

Once you fall from grace, you are beyond hope of redemption. 

This is the message of cancel culture. You cannot be redeemed. One sin, and you’re out. There’s no forgiveness, only consequences.

But what of the Gospel? The Gospel gives us the opposite message. It opposes cancel culture. 

The Gospel tells us that, because of Christ’s sacrifice, if we are willing to come to Him and cast our faith upon Him, God will forgive us and cleanse us of any and all sins (1 John 1:9). What a breath of fresh air!

You see, you can be a murderer. You can be a rapist. You could even be guilty of crimes against humanity. You could be a far, far worse person than anyone who has ever been “canceled.” But if you will only turn to Jesus and depend on Him for your salvation, He delivers you and forgives you. 

And Christ also commands us as believers to be forgivers as well. 

Again, this directly opposes the harsh and vindictive attitude of cancel culture. Cancel culture says there is no forgiveness for sins. And it thrives off of – nay, is even built upon – the unwillingness of the masses to even consider forgiving people for their transgressions. 

Yet the Gospel tells us that we ought to be forgivers. We ought to be forgivers of others, and we also ought to be people defined by love towards those who wrong us. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ says “I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44, ESV).” 

Does ‘love your enemies’ sound like cancel culture? Does cancel culture tell you to ‘pray for those who persecute you?’ Does cancel culture tell you to forgive those who have wronged you? 

I rest my case. 

Cancel culture is about revenge, hatred, and judgement.

The Gospel is about forgiveness, love, and mercy.

The two could not be further apart. And in the end, the Gospel – not cancel culture – will prevail.

Our Hope

In the end, I suppose cancel culture and the Gospel represent two distinct paths. 

Cancel culture offers no hope. It is all judgment and no mercy. It is powerfully toxic. 

Yet the Gospel offers all the hope in the world. It is the application of mercy where there should be judgment. It is powerfully life-giving. 

We are beings made in God’s image, and we are fundamentally meant to live in relationship with God. That means we’re fundamentally meant to be forgivers and practitioners of mercy. I’m not saying that sin doesn’t get in the way (and get in the way a lot), but the healthiest thing we can do is live out the truths contained in the Gospel. 

If you want true joy, you won’t get that by shaming others and “canceling” people. You’ll get it by lending mercy. 

If you want true happiness, you won’t get it by hating others for something they said or did in the past, even if it’s something that you feel personally attacked by. You’ll get happiness by forgiving the person for what they’ve done. 

If you want true life, look to Christ as the source of your life and your strength. Don’t look to the so-called “might” of the culture to stamp out people who cross the metaphorical line. 

There is no life in hatred. And there is no place for hatred in a well-lived life. 

Live your life to God’s glory and abide in the truths of the Gospel. Don’t be shackled to the chains of cancel culture which may reward you momentarily but leave you – and the rest of society – more broken than before. 

True life is found only in Christ. Run to Him!

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Do You Live Like God Isn’t Real?

by JacobChristian Living

I started going to church at the age of 16. During my time as a teenager, I heard dozens of sermons. I must confess that I don’t remember too many of them in particular. But one thing that does stand out to me in special clarity is a story my pastor relayed of a time shortly after he got married.

The pastor stood at the pulpit and drifted to a scene that had taken place early in his married life. He and his wife had gotten into a discussion shortly after he had done something upsetting. She said to him, “You live as though God doesn’t exist.”

Now, I don’t remember what the sermon was over that day. I don’t remember what the Bible passage was or what was preached.

But I do remember that quote.

My pastor, whom I viewed as one who had always been Godly and mature, had just given an account of when his wife called him out for acting as though God isn’t even real. He had even been in full-time ministry at the time. And it made me think.

It still makes me think.

It makes me think because, all too often, I catch myself living as though God were not real. I make decisions without consulting Him. I say things that oppose His heart. I believe things He wouldn’t want a person to believe. I find myself being faithless.

When I look into my heart, I often see a garden full of thistles and weeds – full of selfish desires, of anger, and of ungodliness.

‘My God has a lot of work to do, doesn’t He?’ I say to myself.

In these moments, I am tempted to despair and to give up hope. How can God use me for His work when I fail Him so frequently? How can He even love me? I search my own heart and find that I would lack the patience and the love to put up with such behavior.

If it were not for God, I would be left in my misery.

But it is also in these moments when I am reminded of who God is. I am gently reminded that the God I serve is far greater, far stronger, and far more powerful than my ability to live as though He’s not there.

In 2 Timothy 2:11-13, we read: 

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
  if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
  if we are faithless, he remains faithful—

for he cannot deny himself.

Read that again.

When we fall short – and we will fall short, make no mistake – we can draw encouragement from this passage. When we catch ourselves living as though God isn’t real, or as though He doesn’t really care and won’t really do what He says He will do, we can look to that last section of the passage.

When we catch ourselves being faithless, we can take counsel here.

‘…If we are faithless, he remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself.‘

Just look at the pattern we see.

A — “If we have died with Him… we will also live with Him.”

B — “If we endure… we will reign with Him.”

C — “If we deny Him… He will deny us.”

D — “If we are faithless… He is faithful.”

Throughout this entire block of scripture, we see a pattern.

If we do good, something good will come. If we do bad, something bad will come. You can see that in lines A, B, and C. In A and B, the doing of good results in the receiving of good. In C, the doing of bad (denying Jesus) results in the receiving of bad (being denied by Jesus).

But what about in D? What if we are faithless?

We would expect that Jesus would also be faithless, based upon the pattern. But that’s not what we see.

Instead, we see that Christ remains faithful in spite of our faithlessness. Why? Because he cannot deny Himself.

Wow.

Even in our darkest moments – our times of faithlessness and wandering – Christ stands faithful. He is steadfast. He is above and beyond our ability to hinder Him. As Jesus said in Luke 19:40, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

In other words, Christ will bring about His will and His Kingdom in spite of our failure.

Do you ever catch yourself praying and longing after Christ, yet still falling prey to sin? Do you ever catch yourself praying fervently one hour, then living as though God isn’t there the next?

I know I do.

There are times when I let the world take over, when I let my own desires run the show. I get uptight, overwhelmed, feeling as though I must do it all, for everything rests on my shoulders. I lose sight of God as the clouds of life roll in.

But then I am reminded – gently, sweetly, and firmly – that the Lord is in control. And it’s ultimately up to Him. Far from letting me drift in my sin comfortably, this gentle reminder brings me back to Him.

As Paul Washer is fond of saying, ‘There are no great men of God. There are only weak and pitiful men of a great and merciful God.’

You see, all the goodness we have comes from God. We have nothing good apart from Him. Every good and perfect gift comes down from Him. The very fact that you’re alive and breathing is a testament to His mercy and His power.

You cannot do anything apart from Him.

And be rest assured, dear reader, that it is only because of God’s direct intervention that we can build His Kingdom. Nobody goes out and singlehandedly builds God’s Kingdom. No one is a spiritual superman or superwoman. No one has it all.

Every man and woman you see that serves God is serving Him because of His power – not theirs.

Every time you see Christ shine through someone, it’s because He is bright enough to blast through the clouds of their fallenness – not because they are just “such good Christians.”

When we are unfaithful to Him – when we forget Him, when the cares of the world sweep over our lives like the tide sweeps over a beach – He remains faithful. He must remain faithful. He is unmoving and unwavering.

So be assured, dear reader, that our God is real. He is more real than the world you see around you, and in the end, only His will and His power will count.

He is more than enough to overcome your weakness. He is more than enough to smash down the stronghold of your sin and bring you into fellowship with Him.

Jesus will bear you on, and He will see to it that His good work in you is brought forth to completion.

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The Testing of Your Faith

by JacobChristian Living

Why does God sometimes leave us in painful circumstances? Life is difficult, but Scripture assures us that the testing of your faith produces strength.

Have you ever gone through difficulty?

If you’re human, the answer is likely a resounding yes. Life is full of trouble. Sure, it’s full of joy and full of happiness too, but life has its bad moments.

People get sick. Jobs change. Relationships break down.

In the mist of troubles, it is not uncommon for us to lift our eyes to Heaven and cry out, “God, please fix this!”

We’re human, after all. We don’t like pain. We don’t like it when a friend betrays us, when a job falls through, or when sickness strikes. If we did, there would be something wrong with us.

So we call out to God to fix the situation. We have it in mind that we’re not supposed to be in pain. We’re not supposed to be hurting, grieving, or torn up. Therefore, we appeal to our Creator, to our Father, and our appeal often goes something like this:

Lord, I am hurting. I don’t want to be here. You said that you work all things together for good, so why can’t you just fix this whole thing?

Indeed, when we’re in pain, all we want is for it to end.

But oftentimes, that is not God’s will for us. In all circumstances – even the most painful – God has a purpose for your suffering.

God has a purpose for your pain.

James: The Testing of Your Faith

Just the other morning, I felt led to read from the book of James. I opened it up to the first chapter and began reading. Starting in verse two, it says, 

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4, ESV)

Right there, in that short passage, is the answer for why God often allows pain in the life of the Believer. This is why God sometimes doesn’t change your circumstance.

He is allowing your faith to be tested.

Why is this?

Let’s take a short detour down Metaphor Lane.

Imagine a bodybuilder. A bodybuilder is strong, muscular, and physically-fit. The strongest bodybuilders in the world can lift hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of weight. How did they get there?

It was through continuous “testing” of their muscles.

You see, you cannot grow strong without going through pain. A weightlifter subjects their muscles to intense resistance. This intense resistance (in the form of heavy weight) stretches their muscles to the limits of their abilities.

In fact, each workout creates small tears in their muscle fibers.

That’s why working out hurts so much. Those who train for strength are literally injuring their muscles on the microscopic level. All that soreness and stiffness? It’s because the muscles are full of tiny tears.

Once the muscles have been torn, the individual muscle cells will grow larger, thus filling in the tears. Larger muscle cells will then translate into more strength.

When you first start weightlifting, even a small amount of weight can feel difficult and painful to lift. But after weeks, months, and years of repeated workouts, each one taking you to the limit of your endurance, you’ll build up muscle. The weight that seems so difficult at the beginning will one day feel light.

It is the same way with our faith.

Like it or not, our faith is like a “muscle.” True, we are granted a measure of faith when we first believe on Jesus for our salvation. That is the faith that saves us. But faith is deepened and strengthened over time by testing it. And this deeper, stronger faith will allow you to be of greater and greater service for the Kingdom.

You will grow nearer to God and more able to stand in the storms of life.

Every time you’re going through a difficult situation, remember that God is working in your difficulty. Is it wrong to call out to Him for healing? By no means! Is it wrong to desire the pain to end? Not at all.

But please understand this: when God doesn’t remove that obstacle, that situation, or that “thorn in the flesh,” He has a higher purpose for it. Your faith is being tested, and being put under load.

There is purpose in your struggle. If you’re a son or daughter of God, you can be sure that He is working everything together for your good. In James, we read that we are supposed to, “Count it all joy… for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

Why should we count it all joy? Why is steadfastness (or strength, or endurance) so desirable?

Because it allows you to be, “…perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

You see, there’s reward after the storm. Your struggle, painful as it may be right now, will strengthen your faith. It is forcing you to exercise your spiritual muscles! And what happens after your ordeal is over?

Your steadfastness – that increased strength of your faith – will allow you to be “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” The rewards of stronger faith are many. Those with stronger faith live life more abundantly. They walk in closer fellowship with God. They love, serve, and lead more effectively.

Who wouldn’t want that?

Struggles ultimately often turn out to be God’s mercies in disguise. Yes, there’s pain, but that pain serves a purpose. It is being worked for your good and for God’s glory.

Count it all joy, therefore, when you experience the trials and storms of life. Each season of difficulty is an invitation to strengthen your faith and deepen your love for God.

God bless!

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The Power of God

by JacobUncategorized

God is powerful. I mean really powerful. In fact, the power of God is something that we cannot really comprehend. Just when we think we’ve got some kind of handle on it, something new is revealed and our minds are blown again.

Sometime last spring, I stumbled across what is perhaps, in my opinion, one of the greatest sermons of all time. It was given by a preacher with the name of S.M. Lockridge in the early 1980’s out of Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego, California. I think it’s only an excerpt (click here to listen on YouTube), but it sure is impactful.

Anyway, a major theme that runs through this message is one that I needed – and continue to need – to hear. You see, Lockridge quotes many Bible verses throughout this 14-minute long video. He visits the Old Testament, where he references Psalms and Isaiah. He also visits the New Testament, quoting from Matthew, Revelation, and Mark. And all throughout these verses, he is proclaiming a message of great consequence….

God is powerful. All powerful.

He is so great, so far above us in every way, that we cannot even begin to comprehend His outstanding glory and might. He is to us as the sun is to a speck of dust.

Just think about that for a moment.

Genesis 1 tells us that He created the world in seven days. A huge ball of rock, metal, soil, and water, weighing in at a combined 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds, and He just snapped His fingers and it appeared! By contrast, the biggest structures in human history took decades, even centuries, to build. If we were to unite today as a species and direct all our efforts into constructing the biggest thing ever, we couldn’t build in a century what God did in a split second.

But our Creator didn’t stop there.

While He was forming the earth and separating out its seas and continents, He also created the entire universe. Now the universe is an unfathomably huge place – it’s so wide, our most powerful telescopes cannot see to its end. Light is the fastest thing known to science, and it takes 4 years to travel to earth from the nearest star aside from the sun. It’s estimated that the light from the edge of the observable universe would have to travel for over 12 billion years before reaching us.

Yet God created it all with the gesture of His hand. It takes the fastest thing in the universe an unimaginable amount of time to cross it, yet God just pointed his finger and said, “let it exist!” And it obeyed. Atoms popped into being, energy formed, stars and planets and solar systems came to be. He spoke, and it was so. The great nothingness obeyed Him at His word.

He is extraordinary, and worthy of all praise simply on the nature of who He is.

Now, here’s where things get even more mind-bending: that same God who made the earth also made you and me. The same God who can think an entire planet into existence knitted you together in your mother’s womb. He knew how all your days would turn out before they ever came to pass. And furthermore, although we are all sinners, this God gave us His only Son. He sent Christ to come, live a perfect life, and then die on the cross so that we would be justified and made alive in Him. The God who made the sun, the moon, the earth and the stars… He also made you. He lived for you, died for you, and arose once more for you.

Is that incredible or what?

Here in this world, we’d be absolutely shocked if the president, the prime minister, the king or the queen – whoever our leader is, wherever we live – came up to us, addressed us by name, and offered to take us out to dinner. We’d be shell-shocked. Beyond stunned.

Yet what many of us fail to realize – and I myself used to be one of them – is that we do have a King who knows us. We have a King who cares about us. We have a King who laid down His very life on Calvary so that we could live forever with Him.

That King is Jesus Christ.

That King has supremacy over all creation. It says in Colossians 1:15-17,

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Yes, all things hold together in Him. The stars shine because of Him – He is the one who allows them to go on doing so. If Christ gave the word, the sun would suddenly cease to give its light. If He gave the word, water would flow uphill. If He gave the word, the planets would fly out of their orbits and careen into the blackness of outer space.

All things, everything that ever has been or will be, hold together in Him. And that same Christ desires a relationship with you.

He desires you to lay down your life and come to Him, surrendering all you are to all He is. He is Lord, and He is Savior. He is Friend, and He is King. He is everything, or He is nothing. He gives life, and without Him there is none.

He calls to you. Will you answer?

For the Christian, will you answer His call to keep up the fight? Temptation is powerful. We all make mistakes: I have made them, you have made them. Our adversary, the devil, is always working against us. He’s warring for our joy, for our very life, and he is seeking whom he may devour. Do not let him devour you. Hold strong to the Lord, serving Him with a willing heart, no matter what you’ve done or how far you’ve slid. God is powerful enough to deliver you and set you upright. If He spoke the universe into being, imagine what He can do with your life if you’ll let Him.

Now, to the one who does not believe, will you answer His call in your heart? You can fill that emptiness within you with a lot of things. You can fill it with drugs; you can fill it with money. You can fill it with relationships, or even volunteer work. You can fill it with a career, or with achievement.

But it’ll never be enough.

Only Jesus Christ is sufficient. Only He can truly fill you with light and with love, with peace and contentment.

Come to Him. For He says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10). Lay down your life, surrender to Him, and know true peace, joy, and contentment forevermore.

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Fight Sin With All You Have (Heb. 12)

by JacobChristian Living

One sin can cost you more than you ever thought possible. Here’s how to identify sin, fight sin, and wipe it out of your life.

For two years in college, I lived in a house that was old. I mean really old. It was a two-story brick house that sat in the middle of one of our city’s historical districts. Constructed a hundred years ago, this house had seen a lot over the times.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 20210315_090036-1.jpg
My old, drafty brick house (2021)

When it was built, it was a bed and breakfast. Some time later, it was purchased by a sorority and used as a sorority house. After that, it was bought by an elderly couple and rented out to various tenants.

My roommates and I were among those tenants.

Now, one thing we quickly came to notice was that this house had no insulation. I literally think that the only thing separating us from the outdoors was two sheets of wood and some drywall.

Whatever insulation it once had must have turned to dust decades beforehand.

To add insult to injury, our old windows were drafty. In the middle of winter, you could hold your hands two feet away from the windows and feel the icy chill on your skin.

In the Midwest, that’s INSANE.

The furnace ran non-stop during the winters. The air conditioner ran non-stop during the summers. During my senior year, we had a cold snap so severe that the high temperature didn’t get above 0 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s about -18 Celsius) for a couple days on end.

We shut all the blinds, closed off the unused rooms, and turned the thermostat down to 68 degrees.

The heater never stopped running.

It was the same deal in the summer. When the temperature hit 95 degrees and the humidity was unbearable, the air conditioner would run constantly just to keep the inside of the house at 75 or 76 degrees.

Naturally, the electric bills that came as a result of all this were insane. Split evenly four ways, my roommates and I would often pay $120 a piece… just for utilities.

At this point, you might be asking me: what does all this have to do with resisting temptation?

I’ll tell you: because one sin – just one – is like a house with drafty windows. It might seem relatively small or even innocent, but just a single drafty window can make it nearly impossible to keep a house warm or cool.

Listen to what the late pastor Bob Jennings had to say about this (you will really want to see this – the video is only about 1 minute long):

His question is so, so relevant. What is this one sin costing you?

If you had a leaky faucet, this one leak could result in thousands of gallons of wasted water. Now, few of us would leave the faucet running all night long. Yet if the leak is slow and hardly noticeable from day to day, one might be tempted to just ignore it.

But to ignore it would cost you.

It’s the same with sin. Just one sin – a regular, recurring sin – is like a leaky faucet or a drafty window. It may be hard to pin down. It may occur so frequently that it blends into the background noise of everyday life. Yet it is that one sin which can cost you so, so much.

Look at what the Scripture has to say about this: 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV)

I want us to all pay close attention to the wording here. It says, “…lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely…”

In this verse is an acknowledgement that sin is clever. It’s conniving and sticky. Think about what would happen if you jumped into a puddle of mud. When you get up, you’ll be covered in the mud. It will take more than a few wipes to get rid of this filth, since it clings to you.

Sin does the same thing. It can stick to you like fresh mud.

One sin is also like a weight. It slows you down and robs you of your spiritual energy. One sin gets in the way of your fellowship with God. It is something that saps your vitality and your vigor. It throws up roadblocks in your race as a Christian.

If you went to run a marathon – a hulking, 26.2 mile race – the last thing you would want is to add more weight to yourself. It’s already tough enough to run that distance. But to add a heavy shirt? Heavy shoes? A backpack?

These things make it far harder, if not nearly impossible.

Hebrews is telling us that – if we do have these sins in our lives – they’re like weights. They’re drafty windows. They’re leaky faucets.

They cost us.

Perhaps the reason why you’re not feeling close to God is because you are entertaining a sin. You’re playing with a sin. You have it in mind that, ‘I can have this one thing in my life. I am good in every other area of life. God won’t mind if I have this one lapse, this one “guilty pleasure.”‘

Why do I say this? Because I myself have done the same thing countless times with a huge number of sins. For every finger I may point, I have three pointing back at me.

Quite simply, there is no such thing as a sin without consequences. Even as believers, as saved men and women in Christ, we cannot sin and expect to escape it without any consequences. True, we’re saved from separation with God. We’re guaranteed eternity in paradise with Him. But the law of sewing and reaping is very much active in this life, whether we’re a child of God or not.

Sin has consequences.

If you sin, its negative effects WILL show up somewhere in your life. Those consequences may be small, they may be delayed, or we may not be able to see them directly, but they will be there.

So what is the solution? What do we do about this?

The first thing to do is to take an “audit” of your life.

What is that one sin (or sins) that you keep committing over and over again? What are you allowing in your life that you know you shouldn’t be?

Maybe you’re prone to laziness. Maybe you use foul language. Maybe you’re given to anger. Maybe you idolize something.

Here’s a HUGE one, especially for young people: maybe you lust. Maybe you love to look at others and dwell on how attractive they are.

If this lustful desire is taken further, it leads to pornography addiction. It leads to the acting upon wrongful sexual impulses. This road of sexual addiction can take some people so far that they actually act out upon their urges in a way that is against the law.

Whatever your sin(s) may be, you need to be very intentional about identifying them. Sit down with God; ask Him in prayer to reveal the areas of your life where sin clings to you. He will reveal them, because it is His will (according to 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5) that you would be pure and grow more and more holy in Him.

Secondly, you need to take steps to resist these sins.

One of the more lurid passages of the Bible is found in Matthew 5:29:“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.“

Truly, this is strong language. Jesus Himself spoke those words. What did He mean by them?

The general principle at work here is this: sin is bad, and we should be doing everything in our power to resist it. Contemporary Christianity has largely removed the idea that we need to struggle in our walks with God. To struggle and wrestle sounds foreign to many of us.

Hasn’t Jesus paid it all? Don’t we just need to abide in Him, and He will give us abundant life? Yes and yes.

But there’s also a very real sense in which we have to struggle in our faith. There is work to be done. The Christian life is like running a long race, and that takes a great deal of effort.

Part of that effort is resisting sin.

But notice what Jesus prescribes here: if your right eye causes you to sin, throw it out. We could easily make our own statements that follow this pattern:

If your phone causes you to sin, throw it out.

If your car causes you to sin, stop driving it.

If your TV tempts you, get rid of it.

Essentially, Jesus is calling us to be radical in our dealings with sin. If something causes us to stumble – alcohol, technology, internet, going to a certain establishment, etc. – then we ought to remove it. As Hebrews 12 says, we need to “Lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely.”

In other news, if something causes you to sin, get rid of it. Throw it away. Be radical. Yes, it may sound like overkill. It might even sound foolish. But it is totally worth it! The pleasure you may gain from indulging in sin is no match for the abundant life you will gain by obeying Christ. The Christian life is one of radical counter-culturalism.

It always has – and always will – go against the grain of what society says is normal and natural.

Thirdly, we need to keep in constant fellowship with God and with others.

Out of Hebrews 10, we read:

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25, ESV)

From this, we can clearly see the necessity of keeping in fellowship. In fact, the text tells us that we should not only not neglect meeting together, but that we ought to encourage one another and stir one another up to good works.

In a practical sense, this looks like accountability. When we go into fellowship with one another, it ought to be with the intention of encouraging one another to do good works. It ought to be intended to help one another to resist sin and to cut the old, bad things out of our lives.

The Christian life cannot be lived alone. As the saying goes, “There is no such thing as a lone wolf Christian.”

You see, you cannot expect to try to fight sin on your own power and succeed. You aren’t strong enough. You don’t have the power. If you try to fight in your own strength, you’ll fail – whether sooner or later.

But if you tap into the power of God, if you come to Him with your hands open, you will find success. The resisting of sin requires constant communion with Him and with others. It requires community and relationship.

If you’re not already, you should find a strong, Bible-believing fellowship and then become involved there with people who can encourage you directly in your fight against sin. If you are fighting a long-standing sin, the worst thing you can do for yourself is to hide it and isolate from others.

There is value in fellowship and confession of sin, and we do not need to bear any burden alone.

To draw this to a close, allow me to simply say the following: if you’re dealing with these pesky sins that so easily cling to us, you are not alone. Fighting it will be difficult, and may at times even feel like it isn’t worth it. You will experience failure. But the Lord will bless your effort to fight against sin, as it is His will for you to be sanctified – that is, to become more like Him.

So lay aside that sin.

Put it aside as one casting off a heavy weight or a cumbersome load. Have you ever carried something heavy, perhaps a bucket of water or a big rock, and then felt great relief once you were able to drop that thing?

Sin is the same way. We may not realize it, but these sins are like heavy boulders tied to us. They are like drafty windows or leaky faucets. They rob our rest and steal our energy. We get so used to the grueling effects of the sin, but – once they are laid aside – we find the true rest we were searching for.

This in mind, let us resist temptation with all we have. Let us fight the sins that lay hidden in the shadowy corners of our lives.

Christ promises abundant life, and sweeter fellowship with Him and with others. He is greater than anything we could possibly leave behind.

Let us therefore throw off every weight and run to Him.

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